Told you so...

HEY CONNIE! Is this BIG enough for ya? ^_^

Thanks for the comment prisoner, we're still working out the comment system. It's no big deal really, from now on I'll have the font at slightly larger than normal just so your poor old eyes can read it. :P (joke!)

And now presenting a post that will finally have nothing at all to do with Best Buy!!! A series of terrible random things have been taking place. And the collective effect of those things is that a number of people are finally beginning to see things as I see them and have seen them for some time. Our feelings about everything are beginning to align.

Yesterday, Natalie, my little sister (she's 18) got into her first car wreck. It was a parked wreck. Meaning that the person she hit wasn't moving. She just got distracted and wasn't paying attention to the color of the light, nor to the SUV in front of her who had stopped when it turned red. Everyone is okay. She was seriously shaken but she holds everything in pretty well, she wanted to cry and didn't. She rarely cries anyway. In fact... I haven't seen her cry in years. But that doesn't mean anything. It's not as if either one of us are ever around for each other's intimate moments.
The older woman driving the SUV was calm and collected about it. The police arrived, insurance information was exchanged. The only reason I found out about this as soon as I did is because I was crossing Joplin on my way to work and I passed an accident and thought to myself, "Oh, those poor people. Wait... What? That's my sister!" And it was. So I pulled over and went to see what was going on. When it happened, my dad was still gone for the weeked. Altogether, not a very productive couple of days for the family.

The way the car situation works is that My dad owned his big deisel monolith truck, a Dodge something-or-other. And then there's the Mazda dinosaur, a compact car that also runs on deisel (go figure) and is a car older than I am. Nearly 300,000 miles on it, a terribly old and exerted machine. Nathan bought his T100 truck with the help of my dad and my dad's dad. Natalie drove a mitsubishi, a nice one. It was a kind of opalescent purple.

Obviously there isn't the need for so many cars for one little family. There is a spare car. My dad drives the truck, nathan drives his truck, and natalie has driven the purple one. That car is totaled now. The other car, the mazda dinosaur, was being used by Courtney for the time being. Till she could get her own feet under her and get settled into a workable situation with a house and a car of her own. She doesn't live with my dad, she was living in any number of random places while she tried to juggle a son and a job. She has been living with my grandparents, who's charity extended to watching Joel while courtney worked. Courtney has been trying to get her feet back beneath her for several years now, we haven't gotten anywhere in a hurry. The father of the kids, a guy named Billy, has been a dodgy character at the finest. And an absolute brute at the worst, hitting both her and my year and a half old nephew hard enough to cause cut and bruise.

She still sticks to him though. She isn't a stupid girl, I think she just has no where else to go. And she wants those kids to have a father. She knows they need a father. They just haven't got the option of having a good one. My grandmother hasn't been in the greatest condition recently, she's had multiple muscle spasms and contractions and things of that nature. Things that suggest a relevant problem developing somewhere inside the system. All of this is whispered vapors of rumor to me though, these are the things I've only put together in the echo. In the scattered things I hear from time to time. I've not had time to learn of anything in detail. Recently, its almost as if I'm distant enough from them all that I couldn't ask without feeling as if I were prying through things that were none of my business.

As far as concrete facts, things that I know- the problem has been traced to her neck, and she goes in for surgery tomorrow. Dangerous surgery. My grandfather is going to have enough to do with taking care of her following that, and told Courtney that she needed to find a daycare service before surgery took place. Its been some time now, and nothing has been worked out. Party because of negligence, some because she was in the hospital herself, giving birth. Courtney took the two kids up to Columbus, another city where the father is, to let him watch them for the time being while she worked. She found him there with his girlfriend and ultimately decided against it.

Now we're a car short. Natalie needs the vehicle to drive to work, Courtney needs the vehicle to drive to work, and there is only one Mazda. Everyone is fighting, harshly, about it. Courtney's existence is based upon the charity of others, what a true example of all our lives isn't it? What is childhood all about anyway? Dependency. Now everything is at an impasse and there isn't time to find a solution.

"Something will work out." I said once. "Something always does."

The car is technically to be Natalie's. Courtney, in her rash ventures toward independance, shattered the possiblity of a lot of success for herself, and thus killed her ability to be independant. This began several years ago with a simple childish rebellion, it went unchecked, then overchecked, then it went to hell. And here we are now swimming in the residual heat. My grandmother somehow has ended up in the middle of a great deal of it. And it has been very unkind to her. She said she was ready to pack up everything and just move away from it all. There were few who disagreed with her.

Dave, my mom's husband, has had his share too. Between the ever-ascending animosity between himself, my mom, and the rest of the kids, Courtney, Joel, Billy, and the new baby, and all the constant fighting- he's feeling more than he bargained for as well. He told my mom he just wanted to get out. To go somewhere and leave it all behind.

Someone finally sees my reason.

It all began like a beautiful dream. The family was great, the perception behind how it would happen was great. My mom, my dad, the kids, all of us, one great big happy family. Dysfunctional of course, but it worked. These past twelve years it has been that dream like watching a beautiful building crumble in on itself slowly, and everyone thinking "Oh its not that bad, it can still be salvaged. Something good can still be salvaged from this." And th building never stops crumbling. It's different for everyone I guess, the understanding, the perspective of the point of no return. The reality of the matter isn't that it can't be saved. It's that it won't be saved. Everything rots, everything rusts, everything crumbles and shatters and breaks.

Things die. It's like a giant field of dominoes, or like a snowball rolling down a hill, it gets bigger and bigger and eventually people realize what's happening. No... it's like a disease. An epidemic that you can't escape till you just get the hell out. You can try to treat it, you can fight against it. And you may even win. But you've still been sick afterwards and its not the same. It's spreading and it's getting worse. I realized this a long time ago. Now, people are beginning to see.

It's not just my family, and it's not just what happens here and now, its not that there was a car wreck and another baby and this constant drama. Some now see, it is a constant. Something that began a long time ago, something that can no longer be controlled and now it's the thing in control, it's eating everything alive. Distance... is the last resort. Just make sure you're not sick when you leave. Because if you travel out and spread that sickness to whatever eden you found, you've just made it worse.

Stay away from it while you're there. Cleanse yourself with the sterility of insanity. Like immunity, and then leave as soon as possible.

I might have to accelerate my evil four year plan. I might just have to find a way to leave sooner. Perhaps there is a way. Time to be resourceful again. Alright then... have a good night and take it easy.

You especially Jess- enjoy your break. ^_^

Cheers - monsterbox